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on the bright side, now you can get excited about old tech!
The Sindene Light Guns and Flipper Zero are two products that made me excited for new tech. The big tech companies are just boring and shitty as is tradition.
A friend of mine asked me today if there were tech companies I was excited about. The context was more “companies that will grow” not “companies that are doing something cool”. But, I was stumped because I had trouble thinking of anything in either category.
Looking at the MANA MANA (do dooo do do do) group:
- Microsoft: Always shitty assholes, but their stock price will probably keep going up until the AI bubble pops
- Apple: Nothing innovative since the iPhone, but their stock will probably keep doing well because of their duopoly status and the 30% rake on the App Store
- Nvidia: I used to like their video cards, but they haven’t done anything innovative for gamers since ray tracing, and even that is barely used. When the AI bubble pops they’re going to crash hard
- Amazon: Assholes who screw over anybody who sells things through them, abuses their employees, and the last “innovation” they had was their patent on one-click ordering. Since AWS is most of their revenue, when the AI bubble pops their revenue will crater.
- Meta: Renamed from Facebook because their thundercunt of a CEO thought the future was “the metaverse”, an obviously bad idea from the start. The company only continues to be relevant because network effects cause FOMO and they have an advertising duopoly with GOOG, heavily betting on AI now, and will crash when it crashes.
- Alphabet: Their flagship service is terrible now, but they don’t care because they have such an overwhelming monopoly on search. More importantly, they’re part of a massive ad duopoly with Meta, so as long as they can keep you coming back, they’ll keep making money. I can’t remember them having any innovative ideas since PageRank back when they were founded. They’re also all in on AI and will crash when it crashes.
- Netflix: It used to be that you only needed 1 streaming service, and it was Netflix. Now the Netflix catalogue is mediocre, and they’re getting rid of things that actually made people like them, like allowing a family to share a password, and a truly ad-free experience. I don’t see Netflix growing much in the future, and with how bad streaming is becoming, I expect more people to pirate instead.
- Adobe: You used to be able to own photoshop, and it was a good product. Now you have to rent it, and they’re not even fair and honest about how the rental works. Acrobat Reader used to be a useful free utility. Now they keep enshittifying it. Will they keep making money, probably. Probably won’t crash too hard in the future either, although they’re a tech stock so when the AI crash happens they’ll take some damage too.
It genuinely used to feel like many of the big tech companies were trying to solve problems for end users. Sure, they wanted to make money at the same time, but they actually did provide good services. Google search used to be unbelievably good. It would find the one page on the whole Internet that was the best one for your search. If what you wanted wasn’t in the first 10 links, it probably didn’t exist on the Internet… Even when it had ads, the ads were small, clearly marked, and didn’t crowd out the actual search results. Netflix had a great catalogue and a great UI and zero ads so it was worth paying a bit and not pirating. Paying a Netflix subscription used to feel like sending a message to the Old Media companies that they were dinosaurs who were on their way out. Apple’s iPod and iPhone were really game changers. These days it doesn’t seem like any of them really want to make your life better. Instead they want to act as a rent-seeking middleman between you and whatever you want.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, the only for-profit company I could think of that was doing innovative things that made life better for its end-users was Framework. I love that they’re trying to make modular laptop, and now an innovative desktop. But, there have got to be others out there I’m forgetting, I hope!
I’m excited for peer to peer technology, because it brings us closer to what the internet was originally supposed to be like.
I’ve recommended Keet (chat app) a bunch of times on lemmy earlier, which works really well and that is cool, but that is just a showcase of what’s possible with p2p.
Streaming media, sharing files, communication, browsing wikipedia, etc etc - this can be done without spying middlemen or data centres in between. Some cool demos here 09:45 https://youtube.com/watch?v=BTCsSwCpGP8&t=776
One thing that seemed interesting in that vein is the Dat software / protocol, and the Beaker web browser.
The aim was basically to create a distributed, peer-to-peer web. When I saw a presentation on it, I thought “hmm, if this works it will be really cool, but I don’t think this is going to take off”. It seems I was right because the Beaker browser is now gone, and Dat doesn’t seem to be getting updates anymore.
But, I still think there’s hope for a distributed web. It just needs something like a killer app.
I can’t remember [Alphabet] having any innovative ideas since PageRank back when they were founded.
Oh come on, they made Google Wave, that was pretty neat! And… Um… That’s it I guess?
Saving this post because it sums up exactly how I feel
Is (non-neuralink) deep brain simulation interesting because I know some doctors and they probably know some companies. Never asked to get dad’s cyborg parts back when he died for some reason.
It would be interesting if it actually works. It’s really promising, but it still seems like it’s something that will be cool when it happens at some point in the future, rather than something that is happening now.
i mean it worked in my dad. he was part of a trial to install DBS on moderate parkinson’s patients rather than waiting until the patients had severe parkinson’s. Short story, gave him ten extra years he could work. A bit longer and more details, he was able to manage nearly all of his dyskinesia through the implant rather than via medication (some kind of levi/carbidopa). It was a really neat device, the MDs who put it in were the best at what they do (and, as a professional patient I’ve gotten good at evaluating that) and provided us with all the support we needed up until dad died. So our experience was nothing but positive. I think the charger is in the garage and I can dig it up tomorrow to find out what company built his computer if you want.
Getting open source and fair use products gets me fairly excited nowadays.
I got my new Fairphone 6 with e/os yesterday and it made me giddy to finally degoogle.
I’m on the framework laptop bandwagon, it’s pretty cool~
omg I’m so jealous 😭
The only real tech that has gotten me excited lately is the steam deck, framework computers, and these little info displays called trmnl.
Tech I am excited for:
Better and larger color e-ink. I’m not excited for the software in this particular case, but the hardware is excellent.
The NocFree &, the only wireless, split, 75% staggered column keyboard I’ve been able to find (I would have preferred a full keyboard but I’ll take what I can get) It should be great for disability accommodation.
Sony A9 III While the A9 III is way too expensive for me, this camera basically promises that eventually global shutters should make their way down to mid-level prosumer cameras, and I’ll eventually get a used one or something. I just wish Sony didn’t artificially handicap third party lenses.I have a Framework 16 and I love it.
Already have a stream deck, the framework computer and trmnl look really cool!
… What other cool stuff don’t I know about??
Be me, still waiting for the Deckard…
That’s valve’s rumored new vr headset right? I had the index but didn’t use it enough so I sold it. VR is cool though.
It is! I have an Index myself that I once used to use quite a bit, but I find I avoid it lately because of how cumbersome it is. I really want an inside out all in one VR setup, as I think it would help me overcome those hurdles, but no way in hell am I buying a Quest from Meta.
I’m pretty hyped for the new Seagate HDDs with dozens of TB on a cheap external drive.
Oh yeah true. I almost pulled the trigger on there 26tb drives that are shuckabke for an extension on my nas
I’m gonna buy like 3 of these soon if nobody stops me lol
Oh shit, that price seems too good to be true. My NAS has a couple of 12TB drives in it that cost more than these.
I remember when that was the price for a 1 gb full sized sd card.
Reminder to book your colonoscopy :p
Add the new Pebble watches to that list and, yeah, same. I’ve preordered the Time 2 and it’s the first time I’ve been excited for a new gadget in years.
Nice! I actually had a preorder but canceled it. Had the original plastic pebble so they have a special place in my heart, but I’ve gone back to a dumb watch and have been enjoying being more disconnected.
Also expensive
“I miss getting expensive about tech.”
🤔
You know what I miss? PDAs. 20 years ago I had a PDA with physical keyboard and WiFi running Debian. It wasn’t even that expensive. Today those simply don’t exists. From time to time something gets released on Kickstarter but it’s usually very expensive. What happened? I would expect that with all the advances we would have more gadgets like this today, not less. Is it really matter of scale? I’m sure those old PDAs weren’t selling in millions. What is it?
You can get a GPD pocket and it’s basically a PDA.
Tech was great when it didn’t try to steal your personal information
In the energy space, I’m excited about advanced geothermal (basically using the drilling/fracking techniques developed by the oil and gas industry but applying them to harvesting geothermal heat in places previously not practical). It’s dispatchable energy that can fill in the difference between wind/solar supply and overall grid demand in a way that might make carbon emissions unnecessary.
I’m also excited about a bunch of rechargeable battery chemistries that might make grid scale batteries much more cost effective (and possibly safer and more reliable).
Energy policy in the US is kinda screwed up right now, but hopefully the tech can be developed/rolled out elsewhere, or the merits of the technology will still lead to rapid adoption even in a hostile regulatory climate.
I don’t think we need new battery chemistry for grid scale deployment of batteries, the gravity based ones would be sufficient and much more ecologically friendly. Byecause Dr.Goodenough(not joking that is the guy who practically invented current lithium based batteries) deserves some rest.
I don’t see how gravity storage could possibly scale. Pumped hydro was the dominant storage tech, but is severely limited in geography, so there’s no easy way to scale that. Solid weight gravity systems might come online at some point, but nothing about the trajectory of their development suggests they’ll leapfrog chemical batteries in overall adoption.
And the battery chemistries I’m most excited about don’t involve lithium at all. Sodium batteries are starting to come online, and some metal-air systems seem to be ready to hit the market soon.
Well, he is resting in peace since 2023, so he’s not going to be working as part of further advancement.
Fuck really? Dude did so much to advance portability. What are the kids saying now? Rip in peace?
Who would have thought that a system that rewards creating problems to solve would stifle the tech that addresses real problems?
We need a resurgence in getting excited about manually finding weird stuff in weird corners of the internet.
Tear down the walls of all the shit gardens! Make Internet Feral Again!!!
recently my partner got back on tumblr and it reminded me of the old internet. i was never a user but i’d stumble upon it from time to time back in the day and it seems to my outsiders eyes very much as it did then. seeing the way people interact with posts and have conversations is distinctly different from most modern social media platforms. and now after writing that i’m just thinking about stumbleupon and all the chaotic and random rabbit holes you be sent down from there. i miss the old internet
Yeah, I was reminded of webrings earlier this week. Which was an idea that was so short of accomplishing the goal of web discovery before search engines, but at scale today would be something worth looking at again. Basically decentralized internet tribes. As long as there’s activitypub plugins, it’s even federated.
Not only that, but tech reach a peak that is hard to create something really new it’s all improvements over what exists already.
Kinda true… Tech just gets more expensive and locked down while the gaisn get ever smaller.
I’ve been having the same thought lately. I feel like consumer tech has stagnated since the early 2010s. I miss watching announcements each summer as companies announced their new products and new features, and introducing literal new ways of life.
These days, there’s nothing new anymore. This year’s phone is the same as last year’s and the year before that, except now it has more AI. This year’s game console is the same as the last one, but now it has even more restrictions on game ownership. This year’s car is the same as last year, but now it has a monthly subscription for power steering.
It’s a plateau. Current tools are good enough and we don’t have the technology to do anything significantly better. Apple tried with this silly AR/VR headset and failed. They really put state of the art tech in it and it still wasn’t better then normal laptop. Couple startups tried the AI assistant type tools and also failed. I think the next leap will be some brain-computer interfaces but those are probably decades away.
Apple’s headset wasn’t really innovative in any way that mattered. It was just a bad VR headset that meant it was only really suitable for AR.
As always, Apple waited until the tech matured and tried doing it the right way. It wasn’t innovative but it was the best thing you can make at a price consumes can still afford.
The Steamdeck got me pretty excited to be honest. But uhm, that’s about it.
Yeah, thats the last time I was genuinely excited for something new. Before that it was usually gaming consoles, and the ps4 just wasn’t the excitement factor that ps3 was.
the ps4 just wasn’t the excitement factor that ps3 was.
You liked real time weapon change and battles that actually took place in ancient japan with giant enemy crabs that much?
Me too. It revived the feeling I had when I was teen when a new console was released. Never purchased a device so quickly since valves released the trailer
If you dont restrict yourself to only hardware then there is plenty of cool stuff. Im using git repo RSS feeds to inject changelogs directly into my veins and its great tbh. There are cool new open source TTS and STT models releasing, single camera motion tracking is getting really good, etc. You just shouldnt look towards commercial products for this excitement, because those are always just enshittified lock in traps. The real juice is in hardware independent open source software that wont fuck you without consent.
Without good hardware to interface with software is useless.
Aurora Store (Play Store) apps’ updates? No fun. Not even good changelogs, just generic, unchanging (or slow / rare changing) ones.
F-droid and FOSS in general, on the other hand? Lemme see what’s new. For each and every app.
